Dalkeith, Scotland

It has been raining here almost non-stop.  The sun has been out for a half a day on Wednesday or Thursday, I can't remember which.  Apparently there has been quite a bit of flooding in surrounding areas, although I have not seen any personally.  Many of the horse shows and fairs have been cancelled, so there have been a number of disgruntled riders.  The added benefit is that the grass is doing too well.  Between that and the lack of work laminitis is a common problem this summer.  On that same subject, I have never seen so many obese horses in my life!  I thought that the ones at home were fat- I admit to knowing a few obese ponies- but they are everywhere you look here.  Rory and I saw a Fjord so fat at a barn the other day that we both just started laughing, there was nothing else to do.  Quite literally its belly must have been down to its knees, I'm not joking!  (I haven't taken any pictures, though, because I don't want to offend any owners.)

Today is my first day off since last Monday.  Ruaraidh has been quite busy.  Yesterday was the slow day, we did eight horses, all done before one o'clock, and finished up by three with a few thrown shoes.  The other days have been 10-12 hours and 10-15 sets plus trims, etc. He has had another helper on Weds and Thurs by the name of Geoff who is a very nice guy and good fun to work with.  Geoff is a lefty, so watching them share an anvil was funny.

Geoff and Ruaraidh at the anvil

There has not been anything spectacularly interesting or out of the ordinary so far.  Ruaraidh did make the Horse and Hound magazine, which is a well regarded, weekly publication read by a great number of people.  It was an article on saving a lamanitic horse using rock 'n' roll shoes, per request of the vet.  It was a last ditch effort and now he's affraid that people will be coming to him and/or the vet with unrealistic expectations about saving their horses.  Time will tell.  Other than that, the favorite shoe at the moment seems to be heart bars.  They come in all sizes.

I still don't think that it is small enough for my Mini.

Other than working I've been preparing, with only limited success, for the Great Yorkshire next week.  I think it took me about two hours to make one roadster today, only to discover that it was too small, and needed to be forged more.  I am not used to working with such heavy stock!  Besides a pair of roadsters I have to make a hunter front and hind out of concave.  That's a much more reasonable size of stock.  I'm finding it relatively easy to make the shoes, but hard to make them well.

This was one of the most picturesque places we went to.  It is situated right at the base of the highest of the Pentland Hills.  Getting there you had to be very careful not to run any sheep over. 

Many of the places are not as nice, however.  The stable area, on the other side and not visible from here, did at least have a roof.

They tend to just have open areas with lots of stuff and campers or trailers moved in as storage areas/feed rooms/tack rooms/etc.

Many of the hills around here are really large dirt piles that were hauled out of coal mines.  They are incredibly red in color (as is some of the local sandstone).

I guess they must work keeping the flies because I see them a lot...